The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India c6.s3.3

c6.s3.3

If that was so, why is there hopeless deficiency of Hindu historical writings during the medieval period? In this regard, James Tod, the famous author of the monumental classic *Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan*, has this to say: 1. that ardent Hindus were good historiographers; 2. that medieval times were not propitious for them for writing history; and 3. that much of the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist literature was destroyed by Muslim invaders and rulers. He needs to be quoted at length. Those who expect, writes he, from a people like the Hindus a species of composition of precisely the same character as the historical works of Greece and Rome commit the very gregarious error of overlooking the peculiarities which distinguish the natives of India from all other races, and which strongly discriminate their intellectual productions of every kind from those of the West. Their philosophy, their poetry, their architecture, are marked with traits of originality; and the same may be expected to pervade their history, which, like the arts enumerated, took a character from its intimate association with the religion of the people. It must be recollected, moreover, that the chronicles of all the polished nations of Europe, were, at a much more recent date, as crude, as wild, and as barren, as those of the early Rajputs. He adds, My own animadversions upon the defective condition of the annals of Rajwarra have more than once been checked by a very just remark: When our princes were in exile, driven from hold to hold, and compelled to dwell in the clefts of the mountains, often doubtful whether they would not be forced to abandon the very meal preparing for them, was that a time to think of historical records? ²¹ If we consider the political changes and convulsions which have happened in Hindustan since Mahmoods invasion, and the intolerant bigotry of many of his successors, we shall be able to account for the paucity of its national works on history, without being driven to the improbable conclusion, that the Hindus were ignorant of an art which has been cultivated in other countries from almost the earliest ages. Is it to be imagined that a nation so highly civilized as the Hindus, amongst whom the exact sciences flourished in perfection, by whom the fine arts, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, were not only cultivated, but taught and defined by the nicest and most elaborate rules, were totally unacquainted with the simple art of recording the events of their history, the character of their princes and the acts of their reigns? The fact appears to be that After eight centuries of galling subjection to conquerors totally ignorant of the classical language of the Hindus; after every capital city had been repeatedly stormed and sacked by barbarous, bigoted, and exasperated foes; it is too much to expect that the literature of the country should not have sustained, in common with other interests, irretrievable losses.²²